Beating bad day blues

Any day you are assaulted by seafood be considered anything but "bad",writes Greg. Photo: Peter Zeroni

RUDD and Gillard had a few. Tony Abbott's had more than his share in recent weeks. The English cricket team knows what it's like.

The old saying is about death and taxes.

But really, is there a greater leveller, a less discriminating social force, than your garden variety Bad Day?

You can get it working at the local service station. You can get it passing a piece of controversial legislation. You can get it writing your latest newspaper column.

Matter of fact…. I've got it now.

My day was full of the distractions and frustrations that come with working in a pressure-cooker environment like a newsroom.

And it was bad enough before I got home, poured myself a glass of whiskey on the rocks, sat down to write this column and promptly spilled half its contents all over my laptop keyboazzzzz fizz pop.

Bad days like to kick you when you're down.

When a bad day comes calling, for me, it's usually because I'm frazzled from long hours the day before, chronically sleep-deprived, battling hayfever or an unholy trinity of the three.

That just puts me in a bad mood and when I'm in a bad mood there's only one thing for it - good coffee. Big coffee. Strong coffee.

If you're lucky, the coffee will go straight to your brain and blast away the cobwebs and bad vibes, allowing you to function for the rest of the day.

But sometimes, as happened today, you'll get a bad bunch of beans and the caffeine will fail to fire up your synapses and not even two coffees will make a dent in your dark disposition- and that's too bad.

Sometimes what makes a Bad Day bad is the terrible timing; a sore throat on the morning of that Big Singing Competition; a pimple on the night of that Big Sexy Date.

Bad Days sneak into your bedroom late at night, thumb through your diary and double book in a time to visit you at a time that's least convenient.

Bad days are bastards like that.

Now, I suspect some smarmy PhD student with a gratuitous grant would probably take much glee out of pointing out, that scientifically speaking, there are no such things as bad days - just bad attitudes and bad moods.

Those sorts of people need to be slapped enthusiastically with a mackerel.

And if somebody did, it would only go to prove my point.

In October this year, Swedish newspapers reported the case of a hapless bloke who had been taking a nap in his apartment when he was rudely awoken by a woman slapping him across the face with a mackerel.

A mackerel she'd pilfered from his very own fridge, no less!

I don't care who you are, that's gotta hurt. And never can any day you are assaulted by seafood be considered anything but "bad".

Bad Days are like childhoods. We've all had one. But it's how we deal with them that really counts.

Sometimes there's nothing else for it but to give the God of bad vibes a golf clap, a little "well done" and on the very worst of days a firm and offensive hand gesture.

Trust me, it feels good. Real good.

What brings on a Bad Day for you? And what's your remedy or routine to slap a Bad Day down? Comment below